What scares you, and how does it influence your writing?
Have you ever seen the Winchester House in San Jose, California? Mrs. Winchester was a wealthy and eccentric highly suspicious widow who lived in the area in the early 1900s. She lived in a huge Victorian mansion, and had workers at her home at all times---she never wanted the home to be free of construction, remodels, or other changes. Never wanted it to be finished. She frequently held séances and felt that her “home improvements” were guided from spirits “on the other side.”
From the Winchester house website: Some rooms were remodeled many times. It is estimated that 500 rooms to 600 rooms were built, but because so many were redone, only 160 remain. This naturally resulted in some peculiar effects, such as stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that go nowhere and that open onto walls, and chimneys that stop just short of the roof!
When I visited the Winchester house I gasped. It was my worst nightmare come true.
Jill, my traveling companion, is a great help to me (Jill is the name of the voice I chose for my GPS unit). Jill never says, “You missed the turn, you idiot!” She just recalculates and sooner or later I reach my destination. She is occasionally wrong, however (when she’s going by an outdated map) so I always print Google instructions, too.
I haven’t written about this fear yet. Curious. But now that you’ve asked, I’ll work it into a future scene in my next book.
About Gabriel's Daughters
About Janet Kay Jensen
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